Clouds In Silicon Valley

By BOB HERBERT

Published: September 8, 2003

SAN JOSE, Calif.—
It was a special occasion, a dinner party at Le Papillon restaurant to celebrate Ron Loanzon's 50th birthday. Everyone was having a great time until Mr. Loanzon dropped his fork.

This was on March 16, 1999. The fork fell to the floor and Mr. Loanzon tried to reach for it. But he couldn't. He just stared at it. He didn't say anything, just stared with a peculiar expression that frightened his relatives.

''In his mind, he was bending and reaching for it,'' said his wife, Cora, in an interview a few days ago. ''He was trying, but nothing happened.''

The relatives waited for this odd moment to pass, but it didn't, and Mr. Loanzon had to be taken to a hospital. A malignant brain tumor was discovered. Nine months later Mr. Loanzon, an I.B.M. employee who worked with the highly toxic chemicals used in electronic manufacturing, was dead.

Rudy Rubio's wife, Suzanne, also worked at the I.B.M. complex here in the heart of Silicon Valley. ''She worked in a clean room,'' said Mr. Rubio, referring to the high-tech, supposedly pristine environment in which chips and disks are fabricated.

The pristine environment is for the sake of the products, which can be ruined by even a speck of dust. At the same time, the hazardous chemicals used in the process are capable of doing devastating physical damage to the workers.

No one has a clear understanding of the extent of the danger to workers over the past few decades. It's indisputable that large numbers of men and women who worked with these chemicals, some of them known to be carcinogens, have come down with cancer and other serious diseases. But no one knows whether there is a real causal connection. Many loud warnings have been issued since at least the late-1970's, but the proper studies have not been done.

Mrs. Rubio learned she had cancer in 1987 and underwent a modified radical mastectomy, on her right breast. Soon after surgery she was put back to work in the same environment, working with the same toxic chemicals. Still experiencing discomfort from the surgery, Mrs. Rubio complained to her bosses that her right arm had begun to hurt. An I.B.M. medical history sheet dated Nov. 16, 1987, said she was ''advised to move her trays to the left side'' and continue doing her work with her left arm.

Lawyers for the Rubio family said she continued working in clean rooms throughout 1988 and 1989. During that time, they said, she was exposed to a ''witches' brew'' of foul chemicals. In 1990 cancer was again diagnosed, and this time it spread through much of her body. She died on Jan. 19, 1991. She was 36.

The semiconductor industry has reacted with near paranoia to any suggestion that anyone has gotten sick or died from working with these chemicals. The manufacturing processes have improved and safety is less of a problem now than in years past. The last thing the industry wants to hear about is the possibility that large numbers of workers have already died and many others are desperately sick from chemicals in the semiconductor workplace.

But there is a compelling need to know whether some of the men and women who did the grunt work in the creation of a fantastic new industry sacrificed their health and their lives in the process.

The absence of definitive studies left a vacuum that all but assured the matter would end up in the courts. More than 200 plaintiffs in California, New York and Minnesota have sued I.B.M. and some of its chemical suppliers for damages. The fighting between the two sides has been ferocious.

One of the plaintiffs' attorneys, Richard Alexander of the Alexander, Hawes & Audet law firm in San Jose, said I.B.M. officials never took steps to warn or properly protect employees even though the officials ''knew that toxic chemicals were causing disease'' and an unusual number of I.B.M. workers ''were dying decades before expected.''

Representatives of I.B.M. have said there's no evidence anyone has died from chemical exposure in the workplace and, in background conversations, have spoken venomously about the motives and tactics of the lawyers and others who have gone to bat for the plaintiffs.

As the years pass, the heartbreaking cases are piling up. A disinterested, third-party study -- rigorous and comprehensive -- could provide answers to the crucial question of whether some of that heartbreak is linked to the workplace.